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Implications of AI to schools

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Re: Implications of AI to schools

#281
There is too much focus on students cheating with AI and not enough on the other side of the equation: teachers.

I've seen assignments that were clearly graded by ChatGPT. The signs are obvious: suggestions that are unrelated to the topic or corrections for points the student actually included. But of course, you can't 100% prove it. It's creating a strange feedback loop: students use an LLM to write the essay, and teachers use an LLM to grade it. It ends up being just one LLM talking to another, with no human intelligence in the middle.

However, we can't just blame the teachers. This requires a systemic rethink, not just personal responsibility. Evaluating students based on this new technology requires time, probably much more time than teachers currently have. If we want teachers to move away from shortcuts and adapt to a new paradigm of grading, that effort needs to be compensated. Otherwise, teachers will inevitably use the same tools as the students to cope with the workload.

Education seemed slow to adapt to the internet and mobile phones, usually treating them as threats rather than tools. Given the current incentive structure and the lack of understanding of how LLMs work, I'm not optimistic this will be solved anytime soon.

I guess the advantage will be for those that know how to use LLMs to learn on their own instead of just as a shortcut. And teachers who can deliver real value beyond what an LLM can provide will (or should) be highly valued.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#282
post #250

As a teacher, I try to keep an open mind, but consistently I can find out in 5 minutes of talking to a student if they understand the material. I might just go all in for the oral exams.

Oral exams don't scale well if there are +100 students and a lot of assignments. The main pain point.

A teacher in an environment with +100 students and a lot of assignments that are graded by a random grad student is useless anyway and might as well not exist. If AI could move us away from this cargo cult, that's great.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#283
post #182

With my partner we have been working to invert the overall model. She started grading conversation than the students have with LLMs. From the question that the students ask, it is obvious who knows the material and who is struggling. We do have a custom setup, so that she creates an homework. There is a custom prompt to avoid the LLM answering the homework question. But thats pretty much it. The results seems promisi…

This makes some sense, but my first question would be how do you define a clear, fair grading rubric? Second, this sounds like it could work for checking who is smart, but can it motivate students to put in work to learn the material?

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#284

I think part of the reason AI is having such a negative effect on schools in particular is because of how many education processes are reliant on an archaic, broken way of "learning." So much of it is focused upon memorization and regurgitation of information (which AI is unmatched at doing). School is packed with inefficiency and busywork that is completely divorced from the way people learn on their own. In fact, i…

It's the opposite. > focused upon memorization and regurgitation This is what is easy to test in-class. Teachers worry about AI because they do not just care about memorization. Before AI, being able to write cohesive essays about a subject is a good proxy to prove your understanding beyond simple memorization. Now it's gone. A lazy, irresponsible teacher who only cares about memorization will just grade students via…

> Before AI, being able to write cohesive essays about a subject is a good proxy to prove your understanding beyond simple memorization. Now it's gone.

Take-homes were never a good proxy for anything because any student can pay for private "lessons" and get their homework done for them.

> A lazy, irresponsible teacher who only cares about memorization will just grade students via in-class multi choices tests exclusively and call it a day. They don't need to worry about AI at all.

What stops a diligent responsible teacher from doing in-class essays?

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#285
post #7

One of my students recently came to me with an interesting dilemma. His sister had written (without AI tools) an essay for another class, and her teacher told her that an "AI detection tool" had classified it as having been written by AI with "100% confidence". He was going to give her a zero on the assignment. Putting aside the ludicrous confidence score, the student's question was: how could his sister convince the…

Yeah, this, but also as an adult; When you are a non-native speaker and you use AI to make things more concise and correct. The detector will go off. People may find some wording "AI-ish" (even though I replaced em-dashes with commas and told it to "avoid American waiter-like enthusiasm"). My reaction is: Ok. you want my original? Which is much harder to read and uses 2x the amount of words? Fine. I mean, what is the…

I routinely see people accuse any writing they don't like the style or as being AI generated. There is no possible evidence for this being the case, pple are just dicks.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#286

Most of what schools teach is either useless or toxic. They rarely teach practical skills. I would argue for getting people to use handwriting/cursive as a workaround for this issue. It would mean that if they did use AI then they would have to process some of the content mentally rather than just present it.

K-12 is first and foremost a daycare so both parents can be "productive". Its not only a daycare, but this is certainly its primary function since I've been able to observe the world.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#287
post #7

One of my students recently came to me with an interesting dilemma. His sister had written (without AI tools) an essay for another class, and her teacher told her that an "AI detection tool" had classified it as having been written by AI with "100% confidence". He was going to give her a zero on the assignment. Putting aside the ludicrous confidence score, the student's question was: how could his sister convince the…

I wouldn't mind seeing education return to its roots of being about learning instead of credentialization. In an age where having a degree is increasingly meaningless in part due to many places simply becoming thinly veiled diploma treadmills (which are somehow nonetheless accredited), this is probably more important than ever. This is doubly so if the AI impact extremists end up being correct. So why is the issue yo…

>What somebody scored in a high school writing class should matter far less than the output somebody is capable of producing when given a prompt and an hour in a closed setting

Sure, but it takes < 1 second to read a GPA.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#288
I was very much the kind of student who didn't perform well under exam-taking pressure. For marked work that I did outside of school, it was straight-As for me. For written exams performed under time pressure and oral examinations (administered without advance notice), it was very much hit-and-miss.

If my son should grow up to run into the same kinds of cognitive limitations, I really don't know what I will tell him and do about it. I just wish there was a university in a Faraday cage somewhere where I could send him, so that he can have the same opportunities I had.

Fun fact on the side: Cambridge (UK) getting a railway station was a hugely controversial event at the time. The corrupting influence of London being only a short journey away was a major put-off.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#289
post #154
post #7

One of my students recently came to me with an interesting dilemma. His sister had written (without AI tools) an essay for another class, and her teacher told her that an "AI detection tool" had classified it as having been written by AI with "100% confidence". He was going to give her a zero on the assignment. Putting aside the ludicrous confidence score, the student's question was: how could his sister convince the…

The new trick being used by some professors in college classes is to mandate a specific document editor with a history view. If the document has unusual copy/paste patterns or was written in unusual haste then they may flag it. That being said, they support use of ai in the class and have confidence the student is not able to one shot the assignment with ai.

"Please take this finished essay and write me a rough first draft version of it that looks like something someone might type in on the fly before editing"

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#290
The framing here is typically optimistic. Three years in, we're seeing AI primarily used for homework completion (defeating the stated purpose of learning) and administrative busywork. The real implication isn't 'personalized learning'—it's credential devaluation. If every student can produce 'their own' essays with AI assistance, how do we distinguish actual capability? The schools adopting AI fastest are ironically the ones least equipped to enforce academic integrity. The policy question isn't 'how do we use AI in schools?' but 'what's education for if not to demonstrate work capability?'
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